A Christmas Carol on ctf-2fort
by Jakersrampage
Summary: Backstory: Wrote this as a school project a few months back in winter(it shows at parts) but had to cut out a lot of gaming lingo and make it shorter. Luckily, however, I saved the original, cut out most of the school stuff, and uploaded it here. So...here you go.


Jack was an ordinary young gentlemen. Well, maybe not a gentleman per say but he was a rather decent person when it came to most things. He lived his life as most people did in his generation, nothing out of the ordinary; he was a generally ok person. But on the online game library 'Steam' he went by Jakersrampage, his screen name. Now, he played many of PC games all bought right off steam, but the one that drew himself the most too was Team Fortress 2, and he didn't now why. He wasn't like most players on the game, yet he continued going on as a mercenary on whatever servers he came across. He had no favorite servers or maps; he didn't work like the other members did. He was not a 'team-player', he didn't follow what his team expected him to do and never listened to what they asked of him. All he would ever do is play sniper. No one knew why that was the only class he had ever played as, ever, refusing any and all requests to change classes regardless of what it may do for his team. He simply didn't care about his team, yet when they lost he always found it to blame others for not doing their job, never passing blame on himself, of course.

Rampage trotted into a casual server, 24/7 2fort with his sniper loadout ready. A strange Bazaar Bargain, Jarate, the Bushwaka, a Koloa Compact and a genuine Crosslinkers Coil. Not the most decked out of loadouts, but modest enough. He was on this server for about 20 minutes before he had already met a new enemy, the red teams sniper. Done up with a burning Ol' Snaggletooth and a Festive Huntsman, Rampage hated this sniper and his air of superiority. And only playing sniper ever, he of course instantly made it his goal to break the domination the enemy had set on him. Everything was ok, however, because the team was well balanced at the time. Rampage could be sniper, because they already had an engineer defending the main base and a killer offense to swipe the enemies Intel. It didn't matter what Rampage did cause the team had themselves covered well. However, it was 2/2 and the next cap was for the win. But it was until the engineer had left the server that the teams defense was lacking. Now, a sniper was unnessicary because they could easily grab and cap the Intel, making Rampage's team lose. After leaving respawn a soldier by the name 'MediaboyTGC' had seen the teams lack of defense and called out to Rampage.

'Sniper! I'm glad you're here, we've got no defense and the next cap is for the win! You've gotta go engineer if we want a chance in this battle! To defend the base'

Rampage had heard this speech before. He was always a little insulted. Why should he change classes?

'I'm busy with this enemy sniper. Get someone else.'

The soldier retorted 'Everyone else is doing something important! Its one point, we don't need a sniper, we need defense!'

Rampage didn't care what he had to say. 'Look mate, if you think what I'm doin ain't as important to the team as anything else, then you can ju-'

**Pwoof**

An arrow struck Rampage in the head before he could finish his 'I'm not changing classes' speech. It was, of course, from the red sniper dominating him. Rampage was left sitting in the respawn room.

'Bloody…'

A loud 'YOU FAILED' was heard from the intercom. The Blue team lost.

'Great…another bad team' Rampage said to himself, of course not passing any blame on himself. He heard his team being chased by the crit-induced winners of the round. He was in the left side blue room, in the small dropoff area where nobody can enter, only leave. He left the smaller area and entered the larger area of the respawn room. He was surprised that no one was there yet; the new round would normally have already started. The clock still lied in an overtime position. According to the scoreboard, his team was already entirely hunted down. He looked around the lockers of his teammates; noticing that they were all packed with things and items, except for the scouts locker. He wondered where his stuff was for a moment, then continued to not care. He still thought why the new round hadn't started yet, as if he was stuck in limbo of the failure his team just went through. He looked at the scoreboard again, the enemy team appeared dead too. Or at least, respawining. Shouldn't this mean the new round is starting? But nothing moved. All was still. He saw then, in the corner of the room, a crushed can of Bonk! Atomic Punch, Scouts favorite drink,. It hadn't been there a moment ago… Was he here? Rampage pushed the thought out of his mind and decided to look around. He stepped towards the left hallway leading him to the perch he often sniped in. The water was still, not moving at all; as if the map was frozen in place. He looked to the ground. Footsteps we're littered amongst the steel floor not placed far apart at all. Curious, he followed them up to the opposite blue spawn room, the more common one. He entered the room, immediately seeing it was empty. No one around, all lockers still full of items. He wandered farther back into the room some, just observing everything in its stillness.

'Yo, what's up?' A voice suddenly called out behind him.

'Gah!' Rampage turned quickly, recognizing the scout sitting atop of the reinforcement closet. The scout had no custom items, all he held was his stock base ball bat.

'Scout? ...Where did you come from?' He asked the mysterious scout, as he was not there when he walked in.

'Me? Ah, I'm not a player, I'm a spirit!'

'A…spirit?' Rampage asked, with a bit of confusion.

'Yeah! Me and these other spirits have got a plan too-Ah, well, I won't spoil anything for ya! Anyway, you can call me the ghost a TF2's past!' The scout said for a response. "Long past? Like, are we talking beta or brotherhood of arms past?"

Scout laughed at that 'he-heh-heh…No, brotha…'

Scout hopped down from the reinforcement closet and touched his bat against Rampages chest. "…Your past…' He finished his statement. 'One sec…'

Scout walked over to his locker, which was full in this respawn room, and placed his bat into the larger portion while grabbing a full can of Bonk! Atomic Punch out of the small, upper portion. He popped the tab and began chugging the drink. After a few moments, he finished and grabbed Rampage's arm. He ran out of the respawn room, appearing to be ready to ram the steel wall while dragging Rampage behind him.

"Scout! Arg, what are you-' Rampage tried to argue, but scout lifted into the air with a long jump and he and Rampage soared into the sky.

"Woohoohoo!' Scout yelled, flying through the air with Rampage still being dragged along with him.

"What are you doing!? What's happening!?"

"Time travel, brotha!'

It took a moment for Rampage to take that in

'…What?!'

In a moment they stopped fully. They we're back where they began, at the bases of 2fort.

'Alright, here we are' the scout said, confidently.

'…What's different?' Rampage wondered how this was 'time travel'.

Scout dragged Rampage over to the respawn room, the same one they had left from. The server was buzzing with players. A balanced team, rather. A new player joined, currently classless. Rampage looked at the player, seeing his username and being taken slightly aback.

Jakersrampage. His own name.

'Scout…what is this…' Rampage asked, extremely confused

'The day after TF2 went free to play. The day you joined.' The scout provided as an answer. Finally, the younger Jakersrampage had chosen a class. Being new, naturally he wanted to try them all. So he started at the top of the class list. Class #1, the Scout. He arrived in the starting area of the respawn room.

"Hey! Check it out, your playin' as me!" The scout added, inappropriately rather.

The chatbox was alive with conversation from other, more experienced players.

'Hey, look, a new guy.' One random player said.

'Lets hope he at least knows what he's doing.' Another anonymous player typed in.

Younger Rampage left the room, the spirit and current Rampage both following through no clip mode. Immediately, younger Rampage jumped onto the bridge and was bombarded with grenades from a Demoman, who had been waiting for players to stumble past his reach. The chatbox almost seemed to be revolving around this player; all waiting to prove new players and Free-To-Plays we're to be made fun of.

'Already?' The chatbox filled with the news of this early players death.

Younger Rampage, slightly put off by the low health of the scout, went to the next class: Soldier. He figured he could do good with this, he had a rocket launcher and a shotgun, so this seemed an easy task…right? This time the new player ran towards the sewers avoiding the Demoman, who was still waiting. He made it in safely and headed through the long sewer's hall oblivious to the idea of looking back. That was his next mistake:

**Phft!**

A spy, who had been following him since he jumped in the water, finally got his chance in the sewer to backstab him. Young Rampage returned to respawn once again.

'He's gonna do this all day, isn't he?' The chatbox continued to grow tired of his learning curb. Over the next hour Rampage would try class after class attempting to get some form of points, but he had no luck at all and the chatbox ridiculed him for being so bad, constantly complaining about him not doing anything and being a Free-To-Play, and why this was why the game should had remained for sale and not just given out. All the while Rampage and the spirit watched. Rampage had tried to block this round out of his head before but here it was, displayed to him. Finally, the moment came when young Rampage stumbled upon class #8: The sniper. He took to the famous sniping perch on 2fort where a sniper could stand and snipe only worrying about spies and enemy snipers. And finally, younger Rampage shot a bullet, and got a headshot on an enemy sniper, from the enemy base. That was when he got the feeling of importance-the one every player longed for. He continued playing sniper, doing actually O.K. and the chatbox let up slightly. The spirit talked to Rampage after seeing this.

'So…that right there, is when you became the sniper you are now.'

'Snipers a good class!' Rampage retorted.

'You keep being sniper cause you think it makes you useful, cause it's the only class you've been useful in, right?' The scout was right here. 'But…what if you tried again? And make your team think you're useful again, eh? Maybe then you will actually BE useful, for real, and your team might not despise you for not helping and only sniping! Sounds good, amirite?" The scout made a powerful point. The only reason Rampage had wanted to play sniper is because it was the only class he had any moderate success in. But still, even when he knew he wasn't helping the team at all and they all hated him for that, he never dared to go back to the other classes. All this pushed into Rampage at once was too much to take in. He got angry at the spirit for showing him this, reminding him of this day.

"Look, maybe I've failed before, but why should I go back? So I can fail some more, without any training? This has no effect on me anyway! I'm good as sniper-"

"Not great.' Scout interrupted.

"…Just…get me out of here. This is stupid." Rampage said in response to the scout's interruption. "Fine…rounds over anyway."

**Ding**

The round end bell rang, and before Rampage could hear the announcer say anything, he was back in the old respawn room they had started in. "Scout?" Rampage asked into the empty room. All that was left was the crushed can of Bonk in the Scouts locker. Noise could be heard from behind the large metal doors that led to the main room…beeping noises. A sentry? Rampage pondered to himself before deciding to go look for himself. He walked through the sliding door to see a friendly engineer, dressed with a Data Mining light, a grizzled growth, and a pip-boy PDA. He was also clearly equipped with a festive Frontier Justice and a Botkiller wrench. The sat next to a level 3 sentry and an equally upgraded dispenser. In the opposite corner a teleporter was glowing with a bright, blue light. Players moved freely about the room and the clock ticked, as if the map had been returned to normal again. Rampage would have figured exactly that was true, if he could see the engineer's screen name when he hovered over him. This was another spirit.

"Engineer?"

"Howdy, pardner! So I know Scout just popped in so you know the jist: I'm the ghost of TF2's present."

A heavy running through the base interrupted his speech, as the sentry beeped three times and shot a load of missiles at the heavy. The engineer hit the sentry with his wrench to replenish its ammo. He continued:

"Anyway, don't worry none about the players running around, they can't see you. They can, however, see me!"

"And whys that?" Rampage asked

"Cause this round is going on right now. But you've been put in spectator mode. So, I'm playing right now and you are spectatin'. Hence this being; the present."

"But…how can you see me…"

"A'm a ghost, I do what I want!" The engineer said back, using a regular deus ex machina

"Fine, But if your in a live round then what do the other players see you as?" Rampage asked, questioning the spirit again. "I go by different usernames regardless of servers. They all see me as a randomly generated steam player, but none a'that's important right now. I'm here to teach you something-" Engineer couldn't finished before being interrupted again

"Ugh, does that mean you're a bot?"

"Will ya shut up pardner? I'm here to do important stuff! Just sit back and watch for a minute…"

Rampage agreed and stood around the main room for a while, witnessing the engineer doing his job. Over the next 10 minutes or so he saw basic things- every so often a random player from the enemy red team would run through, wither trying to grab the Intel or camp spawn. The engineer's sentry made quick work of them. Sometimes teammates on the blue team would take some ammo or heal themselves from the dispenser set up, and immediately upon running out of spawn most all players would use the teleporter he had built. But Rampage saw something more-the team praised the engineer heavily; amongst the chatbox and team speak. They all thanked him, congratulated him, credited him for protecting the Intel and the base. They all liked the Engineer-they we're happy to have him on their team. When Rampage sniped he never received that- no one cared about it. They we're always mad when he refused to change classes, and blamed him for not helping the team when he should have. Rampage saw the engineer and his work and how useful and important it was for the team-he had always blamed others for a teams failure, but without an engineer doing this for them and no defense, with him refusing to do it when the engineer left, had it been has fault? Was that a possibility? Rampage took this in over the minutes he watched the engineer work. All the sentry kills, the heals from the dispenser, the team praise, over the minutes he watched he could take it all in. He saw the importance of an engineer, and a defense in general, but he still had one question.

"Alright… I see what you're trying to teach me, but…if your defending right now, then why would I have too?" Rampage asked his final question to the spirit.

"Well, that's true. A sniper is important, and so is a support class as a whole, but'cha need priorities. Support, like snipers, are important. But without a defense they will get'ch you nowhere. "

"Yes, I see that, but don't you have it covered here?"

"Yeah…for now..." The engineer turned to Rampage and looked him in the eye.

"But let me ask you this-what happens when I have to leave this server?...speaking of, you've got another spirit to see, pardner…"

The engineer's sentry began beeping again, but with no enemies around. The engineer began to fade away into nothingness. The sentry blew, along with the teleporter and dispenser upon the engineer completely disappearing. All that was left was machine gibs everywhere, predominantly a halved piece of the quad rocket launcher that topped the sentry. The engineer was gone-the team had no defense. At that moment, a red spy ran through the door at the back right of the main room that led to the Intel room. The spy was carrying the blue's Intel- the score was 2-2. The spy was going for the final cap, and the engineer couldn't help anymore.

"Hey! Get back here! Stop him, team, stop him! Come on!" Rampage yelled at the remaining players of the blue team, forgetting that he was a vision in this game, only spectating.

"Oh no.." Rampage knew it would only be a second until…

**Ding**

The round end bell rang. A moment later-

**YOU FAILED**

The announcer yelled into the intercom. He heard the enemies chasing down the blue team with the crit-hoped weapons they got upon victory. A shadow formed on the wall- dark at first, then visualizing a definitive class shape. A sniper…

Rampage stared on in amazement and fright. The snipers colors we're revealed: They were red. This was an enemy sniper.

Items formed around him, custom items. A burning Ol' Snaggletooth and a glowing, festive huntsman with critical arrows loaded. Rampage recognized him; this was the sniper he was fighting early, the one he knew as his current sworn enemy on the server. Rampage tried to communicate to the spirit.

"You…what do you have to teach me…? You're my enemy…my rival…"

The sniper stood still, not doing anything . Without speaking he pulled back a critical arrow and pulled it back into the Huntsman. This was the humiliation phase, after all. Where the enemies get to kill you after completing the objective- and you can't defend yourself. Rampage knew suddenly. This was his last chance.

"Oh, no spirit-No!" Rampage argued with the spirit, armed and ready to shoot. Rampage wouldn't let his enemies take him that easily- he ran past the sniper before he could shoot and ran down the hallway leading to the Intel room. The sniper pursued him. Rampage slipped down the twisting hallways and ended up at the small room with 2 openings to access the intelligence. Rampage was ready to run into the Intel room, hoping to live a little longer, but was struck by a critical arrow to the knee-leaving him immobile and at 14 health. He understood the message provided by this spirit-he had only ever focused on the enemies he had at the moment, only ever about getting kills; but not about winning. All he had ever cared about was getting the kill at that moment, not focusing on the objective or his team. But now they had lost, and when that happens its truly his enemies who get to win- who overtake him. That's what had happened now; just because he feared defending or leaving his comfort zone. And now, it was almost too late.

"Spirit! I see now! I know what your saying, I receive your lesson! If I don't help my team and only worry about current enemies, then my enemies are the ones that win! I see no, spirit!" The spirit loaded another arrow and took aim.

"Spirit-No! You don't need to do this- I get your message; just let me live here, now, and the lesson is received"

The spirit spoke: "Its like Christmas mornin'…"

"Spirit! NO-"

It was too late for reasoning. The spirit fired his fired arrow, and it struck Rampage through the head, leaving him in the void of respawn; telling him to wait for the next round. But as soon as the new round booted up, Rampage looked at himself. He didn't see the sniper's hands as he usually did, but just blackness. He was a black, shadow figure…classless…he looked in front of him. A large menu was ahead, telling him to pick a class. All the games classes we're presented in front of him. He realized he was at the start of new round, and now he could change classes.

"This…this is my chance...now." Rampage spoke to no one but himself.

Numbers we're listed next to each class, indicating how many of each class were already on the battlefield.

2 Scouts.

1 Soldier.

No Pyros.

1 Demoman.

2 Heavies.

No engineers-

Rampage stopped reading there. They still had been left with no real defense. The chance couldn't have been better; he picked engineer immediately. He was in the primary blue spawn room with all stock weapons equipped. He had gathered plenty in his inventory over a while; but first he had to try this vanilla style. He ran out into the main room and looked around. His teammates all had already ran out of spawn, the room was quiet, and Rampage began. He went with a similar setup to the spirit of the present, placing his sentry in the far corner and a dispenser not far away. He held off on making teleporter yet, not wanting to leave his new sentry. The room was still quiet, all that was heard was a friendly sniper shooting from his perch. Doing his job. He ran to the reinforcement locker, got a new batch of metal, upgraded his sentry to level 2, and went back to spawn for more. While he was in the respawn area, however, he heard 2 beeps, and load of shots fired from behind the steel door. He went out cautiously and stared at the sight in front of him in shock. Upon the cold floor of the room was a dead pyro from the red team; packed with bullets fired from his sentry. Blood was splattered around the body and on the nearby walls. It…was…an amazing feeling. He had done that. His sentry. It killed another player and it wasn't even level 3. Feeling a sense of pride he walked over, replaced the ammo in his sentry, and upgraded it to level 3 only taking a few extra scraps from his dispenser, which he fully upgraded next. Standing next to his sentry Rampage heard a Demoman ready to come through. This time, he was there to see it. The demo foolishly walked in, not being aware of the sentry, and after 3 beeps the sentry turned the Demoman into a flying ragdoll. Rampage was prepared for the Demo though, giving him the perfect time to taunt in front of his sentry for the enemy to see before waiting the 10 second respawn time this server had (For whatever reason). All during the round he remained engineer, his sentry blasting attacking enemies and dispenser supplying himself and his team, as well as the teleporter he eventually worked up the bravery to build an exit for, right in the enemy sewer; an incredibly valuable spot. As he did this a feeling of great importance washed him. His team finally valued him for the first time in his career as merc; they actually thanked him for his services and defense to the base. Over the next several hours and long into the night Rampage had become a natural. He played on a plethora of maps, from cp_well to plr_hightower to koth_badlands and back, he played them all doing whatever his team needed him to do, seeing just as they made the same sacrifices. He played for hours, making each loadout his own for every class, and he did in fact try them all. He knew the jobs of each, knowing where to run as the slick and speedy scout and knowing where to hide as the dashing, sneaky spy and strategies for them all. Quickly gathering cosmetics and weapons; being sure to dress to impress around veteran players. He made friends along the way, sending requests on steam to multiple players he met his fights and engaged in trades and sales with the ones he met on trade servers. He never forgot the spirits he saw, the lessons he learned, and the events he witnessed on that night-what he likes to think of as the night he learned the spirit of TF2. And now, being way over the word limit (Sorry) the story ends here; there's no ending or closing or anything because I'm not good at that. You get the moral.

A Christmas Carol on ctf_2fort


End file.
